Law in Quebec

News about Quebec legal developments

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  • Quebec justice system in crisis

    The Quebec justice system, buckling under the weight of years of chronic underfinancing, is stricken by such a serious manpower shortage that hardly a day goes by without a trial, a preliminary inquiry or a sentence being delayed or postponed, an untenable situation that could lead to “significant harm” to the public and undermine faith towards judicial institutions, warn top legal officials.

    The “catastrophic” situation is exacerbated by tense labour relations with a host of different legal actors and the Quebec government, with legal aid lawyers recently launching half-day strikes, private sector lawyers who take on legal aid mandates now refusing to accept cases dealing with sexual and intimate partner violence, and court clerks launching walkouts that may metamorphose into a strike.

    “The situation is at a minimum very troubling,” remarked Catherine Claveau, head of the Quebec Bar. “The system has reached its limits. At the moment, there are very real risks of breakdowns or disruptions of services that could cause significant harm to citizens and generate a great deal of insecurity towards judicial institutions.”

    Former Quebec Superior Court Chief Justice Jacques Fournier is just as concerned by the turn of events, asserting that parts of the justice system is in the midst of cracking, a state of affairs that will unlikely improve with an ageing workforce progressively retiring – unless more monies are poured into the justice system.

    “It’s very, very worrisome, very worrisome, because it’s not going to get better,” said Justice Fournier, who along with the chief justices of the Court of Quebec and the Quebec Court of Appeal wrote a letter to the Quebec government last year entreating it to boost the salaries of their judicial assistants. “To be satisfied with justice that is delivered in twelve, fifteen or eighteen months is not ideal. In my opinion, justice should be rendered almost in real time. It will take major investments to modernize, but modernizing in terms of access and in terms of speed of execution.”

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  • Legal challenges to Quebec’s contentious language law being prepared

    Barely days after the controversial and sweeping new language law that overhauls the Charter of the French language was adopted by the National Assembly of Quebec, the groundwork for potential legal challenges was being laid in spite of the Quebec government’s use of the notwithstanding clause to shield it from judicial review.

    A Montreal English school board announced shortly after the passage of Bill 96 that it will be contesting its validity, with First Nations possibly following suit as well as business, and even possibly the judiciary, according to legal observers.

    “Parts of Bill 96 are extremely vulnerable,” remarked Julius Grey, a Montreal constitutional and human rights lawyer collaborating with other lawyers to challenge the new law.

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  • McGill law professors seeking to unionize

    McGill law professors, hoping to gain greater faculty autonomy while seeking the security of a collective bargaining framework and a collective agreement, are attempting to unionize at the faculty level, a first for professors in the university’s 200-year history.

    The Association of McGill Professors of Law (AMPL) petitioned the Quebec Administrative Labour Tribunal to be recognized under the Quebec Labour Code in late November 2021 shortly after the university adopted a controversial COVID-19 vaccination policy, a position that proved to be the “bale of hay that broke the camel’s back,” said Evan Fox-Decent, AMPL’s interim president. A supermajority of the 51 McGill law professors have signed membership cards to allow the AMPL to act as their exclusive bargaining agent. The overwhelming majority of Canadian professors are unionized, with less than a handful not represented by a certified bargaining unit.

    “The university is becoming more McGill incorporated than McGill University in recent years,” remarked Fox-Decent, Canada Research Chair in Cosmopolitan Law and Justice. “What really drove the point home to us about how precarious our situation is, was when we were told we were going back to teach in fall, of course we were under a new wave of COVID-19 that was starting up. That was as much as anything what put people on edge and made the majority of the faculty think that we just had to sort of take control over our own house.”

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  • New labour relations legal landscape on the horizon following Appeal Court decision

    A new legal landscape governing labour relations may be in the horizon in Quebec following a Court of Appeal decision that found that the provincial Labour Code breached the Canadian and Quebec Charters by prohibiting first-level managers from unionizing.

    “It’s a very important decision because it kind of creates a crack in the legislative scheme that we have in Quebec with regards to labour relations,” said Shwan Shaker, a labour and employer senior associate with Borden Ladner Gervais LLP. “It’s kind of opening a breach to allow low level managers to unionize. But it’s important to keep in mind that this is really case-by-case.”

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  • Mandatory retirement clauses breach Quebec Charter, rules court

    Professional services firms that have mandatory retirement policies and provisions that require partners to divest their ownership shares solely on the basis of age are discriminatory and in breach of the Quebec Charter of human rights and freedoms held Quebec Superior Court in a ruling that has the legal community buzzing over its implications.

    In a case that pitted a Montreal municipal and labour and employment law firm against its founder, the decision by Quebec Superior Court Justice Stéphane Lacoste is expected to have wider repercussions than the thorny issue of mandatory retirement, according to legal observers. Following the decision in DHC Avocats inc. c. Dufresne, 2022 QCCS 58, typical arrangements made by professional services firms in succession planning such as “unpartnering” or changing the status of their senior partners while still allowing them to work in the firm may be called into question, added legal experts. (more…)

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  • Court deems COVID-19 measures a “misfortune”

    COVID-19 is still wreaking havoc on people’s lives.

    But it’s heartwarming to see that the courts are taking into account hardship.

    In a brief bankruptcy ruling in Syndic de Deutsch, 2022 QCCS 222, Quebec Superior Court held that:

    [14] There is no doubt that the measures put in place by the federal and provincial governments are a “misfortune” (“un malheur”) and the Court must consider even sua sponte the application of Article 175 of the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act for bankruptcies filed after March 2020.

    [15] In this particular case, the requirements of Article 175 of the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act are not met however I consider the economical context.

    [16] Neither the Superintendent of Bankruptcy nor any creditors have opposed the discharge of the Bankrupt.

    [14] The bankruptcy and Insolvency Act’s objective is the social and economical rehabilitation of an honest but unlucky debtor and I hereby grant Ms. Irit Deutsch an Absolute Discharge from her bankruptcy. (my emphasis).

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  • Religious corporation loses battle over perpetual contracts

    In 1945 a religious corporation acquired from the City of Sherbrooke a piece of land, adjoined to a property it already owned, to provide a resting place for weary nuns, or “religieuses fatiguées.”

    It paid $200. But the contract includes a clause by which the City obtains the privilege to repurchase the land at the price sold in the event that the religious outfit decides to resell it.

    Les Filles de la Charité du Sacré-Coeur-de-Jésus launched an action to have the right of pre-emption be declared null and void or, in the alternative, that a time limit be set for its lapse.

    The Quebec Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal. Heeding guidance by the Supreme Court in Uniprix inc. v. Gestion Gosselin et Bérubé inc., 2017 SCC 43, the Appeal Court reaffirmed that the only perpetual contracts that are invalid as contrary to public policy are those where perpetuity “undermines” fundamental values of society.

    “It is true that the appellant cannot freely dispose of this land, since it must allow the respondent to buy it if it decides to sell it, but this is not shocking,” said the Appeal Court in Filles de la Charité du Sacré-Coeur-de-Jésus c. Ville de Sherbrooke, 2022 QCCA 112.

    “The appellant has, to date, used the land in the manner it intended at the time of purchase and can continue to do so since it is only if it decides to sell it that it will have to allow the respondent to buy it back. It is true that this limits one of the components of her right of ownership, in this case abusus, but this limit does not undermine a fundamental value of society, especially since many other dismemberments of the right of ownership are authorized in Quebec law.”

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  • Insurer loses battle against Quebec tax authorities

    Insurers are required to collect tax on insurance premiums, and remit it to the provincial government, within a certain allotted time.

    When clients sent a cheque or made an electronic payment to pay their premiums before it was due on the effective date of the policy,  one insurer accepted the sums as soon they were received but did not yet remit to the tax authorities because the policy was not yet in force.

    The Quebec Court of Appeal nixed that practice.

    The insurer, as per s. 527 of the Act respecting the Québec sales tax (Act), must in its capacity as agent account for the tax collected in the preceding calendar month at the end of the month, held the Appeal Court in Agence du revenu du Québec c. Assurances générales Desjardins inc., 2022 QCCA 57. Whether or not the premium is due does not change the fact that the insurer has collected the amount of tax on insurance premium paid by the insured and must therefore remit it to the Minister, added the Appeal Court.

    “There is no doubt that, where the premium is paid on the day the contract comes into force, the tax on insurance premiums collected must be remitted to the Minister in accordance with the terms of section 527 of the Act.

    “The issue at stake here is that the customer voluntarily fulfills his obligation, the payment of the amount corresponding to the premium, which includes the tax on insurance premiums, before the arrival of the suspensive term agreed between the parties and that the (insurer) collect this amount although they are technically not yet entitled to it.”

    On top of that, under article 2398 Civil Code, this contract is formed as soon as the application is accepted by the insurer, even if it takes effect at a later date, added the Appeal Court. The enforceability of the reciprocal obligations of the parties is then simply suspended until the date fixed, concluded the Appeal Court.

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  • Quebec enacts new corporate transparency framework

    A new corporate transparency law recently enacted by the Quebec government will compel all private corporations and partnerships, regardless of where it is registered or incorporated, who conduct business in the province to disclose the identity and some information of the beneficial owners of their shares in a publicly accessible database, a requirement that goes further than similar legislation passed by the federal government and other provinces.

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  • The contract is king

    The contract is king, especially when it involves sophisticated commercial parties who freely negotiated a non-consumer contract, ruled the Supreme Court of Canada in a case dealing with non-liability clauses.

    In a case centred around a contract dispute between two firms, the nation’s highest court overturned a Quebec Court of Appeal decision and held that “the will of the parties had to be respected.”

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  • Quebec relaxes rules to insurance provisions over the duty to defend

    The Quebec government, concerned over the possibility that a growing number of head offices were contemplating leaving the province over rising costs of insurance premiums for big business, is relaxing a legislative provision that compels insurers to assume defence costs of insureds over and above the limits of insurance policies.

    The legislative amendment, welcomed by big business, will allow defence costs to be excluded from coverage or included in the limits of insurance only for certain ”categories of insurance contracts” and “classes of insureds.” This change may bring some insurance relief to public companies and large businesses who are struggling with rising premiums to obtain liability insurance, in particular coverage for directors and officers (D&O), in Quebec, according to insurance legal experts.

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  • Informed bet

    Odds are that the federal government is going to legalize single-event sports wagering. The Safe and Regulated Sports Betting Act (Bill C-218) was unanimously passed by the House of Commons, and is currently before the Senate.

    Similar private member’s bills have previously made it this far, but this time it’s different. The bill has all-party support, and has the backing of the sports industry and police, both of which opposed legislation in the Senate in 2015. A 2018 U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down a federal law prohibiting single-event sports betting outside of Nevada, giving each state the power to decide whether to allow it within their borders, has changed the North American gaming landscape, adding pressure on Ottawa to follow suit as 30 states and counting have either launched legal sports betting or passed legislation. “The U.S. Supreme Court decision was probably a trigger point because once it becomes regulated in the U.S. then you ask what is fundamentally different about that form of entertainment in Canada from the U.S,” notes Don Bourgeois, former General Counsel for the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) and now counsel with Fogler, Rubinoff LLP.

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  • Ruling may broaden Ottawa’s reach over patents

    Seven pharmaceutical companies, along with a string of intellectual property organizations and patients’ groups acting as interveners, that challenged the constitutionality of new regulations intended to lower patented drug prices were rebuffed after Quebec Superior Court found that the price control of patented drugs falls within the scope of the federal government’s powers over patents.

    The long-awaited decision will likely have a substantial impact on the pharmaceutical industry in Canada, will compel Ottawa to overhaul its regulatory approach and guidelines over patented drug pricing, and may even broaden the federal government’s reach to regulate other intellectual property, according to legal experts.

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  • New tort for online harassment recognized by court

    A new tort of “harassment in internet communications” has been recognized after Ontario Superior Court found that traditional defamation law remedies have been thrown into disarray by the internet.

    In a case dealing with extraordinary campaigns of malicious harassment and defamation carried out unchecked, for many years, as unlawful acts of reprisal, Ontario Superior Court Justice David Corbett held that while regulation of speech carries with it the risk of over-regulation, even tyranny, doing nothing also also “carries with it the risk of anarchy and the disintegration of order.”

    [4]               Freedom of speech and the law of defamation have developed over centuries to balance the importance of preserving open public discourse, advancing the search for truth (which must allow for unpopular and even incorrect speech), protecting personal reputations, promoting free democratic debate, and enforcing personal responsibility for statements made about others.  The value of freedom of speech, and the need for some limits on that freedom, have long been recognised as central to a vibrant and healthy democracy and, frankly, any decent society.

    [5]               The internet has cast that balance into disarray.

    [6]               This case illustrates some of the inadequacies in current legal responses to internet defamation and harassment.  This court’s response is a solution tailored for these cases and addresses only the immediate problem of a lone publisher, driven by hatred and profound mental illness, immune from financial constraints and (dis)incentives, apparently ungovernable except through the sledgehammer response of incarceration…

    It is clear that the law needs better tools, greater inter-jurisdictional cooperation, and greater regulation of the electronic “marketplace” of “ideas” in a world with near universal access to the means of mass communication.

    Here is the ruling.

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  • Is mandatory COVID-19 vaccination an option for employers in Quebec?

    Since the beginning of the pandemic, many have been eagerly awaiting a safe and effective vaccine to allow us to return to normal. With the first doses arriving in Quebec, one question keeps arising: Can employers require employees to get vaccinated before returning to work?

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Law in Quebec
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